张海川

教师简介：新东方重庆学校留学考试中心教师，英国爱丁堡大学英国文学硕士。热衷于读书、旅游，曾环游过世界12个国家与地区。授课擅长运用对英美文学及文化的独特见解，开发学生的批判性思维。

Topic:

Interviews form the basic selecting procedure for most large companies. However some people think interviews is not a reliable means of choosing who to employ and there are some other better methods of selection. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Since the invention of commerce and labor market, interview has been a popular practice for companies todiscoverqualified employees. However, anincreasingly indiscriminate practice of interview prompts many to question its true efficiency and validity.As far as I am concerned, despite many apparent advantages, interview is neither adequate nor reliable in assessing candidates.

Undeniably, interview is a handy form of evaluation with many advantages. Through questioning, employers can easily find out whether an applicant is equipped with the qualities that they are specifically looking for. And for some companies,thedialogic nature of interviewgives rise to its legitimacyas anequal and fair practice. Therefore, interview gradually establishes itself as the hegemonic factor determining the whole selection process.

More often than not, interview fails to be reliable or comprehensive, since it merely gives chances to candidates who are good at oral communication while blocking others who are not. Instead of having a face-to-face communication, many talented but unfortunate applicants would prefer to demonstrate their competencyin a different but more innovative way. What is worse, the universal practice of interview seems tosuggest that only those who can survive oral examinationare capable of doing well inreal business settings. Therefore, in many situations, a routine and mechanical interviewis unlikely to reveal the true capacity of an interviewee.

In addition,the abuse ofunnecessary interviews has blinded companies with illusions that their recruiting systemsaretoo good to be improved. Whereas in many cases, even the mostsophisticated HR manager would be too ready to dismiss as wrong any slips of tongue that do not seem to satisfy a businesslike standard. Hence, holding regular interviews simply gives companies good reasonsto have fewer qualms aboutimproving their own mechanism of employing new members.

In contemporary society, interview would definitely be a continuing battlefield for every job-hunter to vie with each other. By questioning its reliability, I am not suggesting that interview should be totally abandoned. What I am arguing is that, when interview becomes nothing but a habitual procedure, it halts rather than helps the progress of the organizations. With workforce more educated and diverse, current employersought to demonstrate a greater flexibility when deciding what forms of evaluation should be adopted.